


Burn

by randomalia (spilinski)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:45:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4225866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilinski/pseuds/randomalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later he remembered the day they went hunting, just the two of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn

**Author's Note:**

> What if Merlin had been caught?

Later he remembered the day they went hunting, just the two of them, slipping through the cool woods as the canopy flushed red with sunrise. He killed hares, three or four of them, and sunk an arrow into the flank of a doe, and when dusk fell upon them they made a fire near the lake.

It was dark enough to blur the edges of things, like memory; light enough to see the water glisten on skin. They took their clothes off and disturbed the surface, splashing each other and sinking under, a pink light over everything, taunting, laughing. They ended up on the soft bank, pressing their hot mouths together, their faces, their hands; urgent and new. He'd never done that before: kissed softly from cheek to chest, down along the perfect curve of neck and jaw. He did it as well as he could.

Outside the sun is shining through an uncertain fall of rain; he watches it blankly. The drops catch the light sometimes; it looks like thread, gold or silver, something familiar.

He had gone to the dungeons, again and again he went but down in the stale hay and the shadows Merlin had only looked at him and said, _don't, Arthur. You'll only make it worse._

Too late for that, of course. They couldn't undo what had been done, and memory had a way of lingering; the outline of a flame when it's already been stamped out.


End file.
